Willie "Fareed" Fleming
In America, we’re hearing the phrase “I can’t breathe” way too often these days. We normally hear it as life is taken from unarmed African American males at the hands of racists officers. There’s another place “I can’t breathe” is being heard. That’s in our prisons. I can’t breathe is being yelled by those dying to officers as well as those dying to the cornavirus. Check out this unbelievable, heartwrenching story of an incarcerated Loved One, Wille “Fareed” Fleming as he battled coronavirus behind the prison wall…
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art
with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4
When I was a little boy in Sunday school memorizing that verse back in the 60ty’s, I envisioned
a slim pathway between two mountains, boulders or something that was way out in the middle of
nowhere; and in a place where a lion or bear- or even a human enemy would be tracking me and
trying to take me out. I never would have thought that the predator would be the coronavirus.
Forty days ago, the coronavirus arrived at the Wynne Prison Unit in Huntsville, TX. We knew it
was here because men started falling out and everyone was manifesting the symptoms that were
being warned about on television such as dry coughing, fever, an inability to breathe and extreme
fatigue.
The first order was to socially distance. Well, how do you do that in prison? Especially on a unit
where the cells are 8X10 feet and shared with a cellmate and the showers are communal.
Nonetheless, the practice of “socially distancing” started on April 3rd. I know because I was
scheduled to go give a sermon that day in the chapel and we all had to readjust to meet the social
distance guidelines. The Chaplain and I were in his office talking and going over the sermon
notes when he started coughing and feeling fatigued. Three weeks later, he died from the
coronavirus.
I knew I had contracted it from him and by this time I was beginning to have few symptoms, as
was the whole wing where I was housed. My cellmate, who was twenty years younger than me,
had foot bruises and a dry cough which he thought were as a result of the virus. Every one up
and down the row of 28 cells felt that they had some type of symptom and then people started
passing out, falling down and yelling that they couldn’t breathe.
We would go to bed listening to see who was coughing the worst. We would ask, “Has Mike
made it back from Memorial Hermann?”(The hospital that most were rushed to.) Then we began
to notice the list of names just kept getting longer, and longer and longer. “Does anybody know
what happened to Bell, Rock, Phil, Jay, Howard, Milton, Flacco,the Irishman, Chi-town, G-Man,
Lil Man, Tiny, Bryan College Station, East Texas, Fifth Ward, Johnny Cochran? Man, there are
too many of us missing and the chaplain is dead!” The news said that there were 12 of “us” who
were dead. The rumors spread as quickly as the virus and the next then that happened was the
new name for the cell block- “The Death Block.”
I refused to entertain any negativity.
I woke up in the morning praying and reading the Word and fasting to stay spiritually strong; but
my dry cough wouldn’t stop. My chest was hurting slightly and I couldn’t smell anything. I was
always waiting for things to get just a little worse before I sounded the alarm.
Then, on April 28th, the officials started doing targeted testing for guys that were in the
vulnerable population. I was one of the ones tested.
I finally broke and told my wife, although I never told her about the symptoms because I
couldn’t have her worrying; but when I took the test I knew it would come back positive and it
did. They moved all of the offenders positive with the coronavirus to a block all by ourselves.
None of us were looking the other men in the eye. It was as if we were all being marshalled
together to die.
No sooner than we got settled in, the calls for help began. “I can’t breathe.”
Another man was having a heart attack and despair and depression had consumed the whole cell
block.
Mail quit coming, the officers working our block were donned in space suits and looked at us as
if we were already dead. The only food we received were sandwiches that were cold,
non-nutritious and never delicious. Then the water got turned off for five days due to a broken
pipe. It was as low as it gets. One day, I was in my cell writing my son a letter reminding him of
everything I ever taught him and the Holy Spirit quickened me to get up and start shadow
boxing.
I started swinging at the unseen enemy.
I fought him for about 30 minutes and then started doing a regimen of push-ups and other
exercises until I was dripping with sweat and I heard the verse, “ Yea though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” I heard that verse as I had never heard it
before. DAvid said, “AS I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF
DEATH,” not as I am overcome in the valley. Not respective of how death’s tail struck me on
the left cheek, but how I WALKED THROUGH, fearing now evil and taking comfort with his
rod (The Word) and his staff (The Holy Spirit).
I have made it through the valley, but death was on my every side. Many have passed away and
their faces are still fresh in my mind, but God saved me, covered me, guided me through and I
am grateful and thankful. I don’t know if all of the guys that were taken away are dead or just
being housed somewhere else, but I know they deserve to be checked on, remembered and
forgiven for many were redeemed and have regenerated their lives. They are great examples of
new creatures reconciled back to God.
Signed,
Willie “Fareed” Fleming